Information on disaster risk management: case study of five countries: Jamaica

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Garimpo do Araras/RO depois do Eldorado

Pós-graduação em Geociências e Meio Ambiente - IGCE

The employment situation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Labour productivity and distribution issues

Although the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean grew more slowly in 2011 than in 2010, there were some improvements on the employment front. Workers benefited from the region’s satisfactory economic performance in an increasingly complex international setting. The unemployment rate fell from 7.3% in 2010 to 6.7% in 2011 thanks to a halfpercentage- point gain in the urban employment rate. Both rates are at levels that have not been seen for a long time. The proportion of formal jobs with social benefits rose as well, and underemployment declined. The average wage and the minimum wage both increased in real terms, albeit only moderately. Economic performance and the employment situation varied widely among the subregions. The unemployment rate dropped by 0.6 percentage points in South America but 0.4 percentage points in the countries of the northern part of Latin America. In the countries of the Caribbean, the employment rate was up by 0.2 percentage points. The data show that substantial labour market gaps and serious labour-market insertion issues remain. This is especially the case for women and young people, for whom unemployment rates and other labour indicators are still unfavourable. The second part of this report looks at whether the fruits of economic growth and rising productivity have been distributed equitably between workers and companies. Between 2002 and 2008 (the most recent expansionary economic cycle), wages as a percentage of GDP fell in 13 of the 21 countries of the region for which data are available and rose in just 8. This points to redistribution that is unfavourable to workers, which is worrying in a region which already has the most unequal distribution of income in the world. Underlying this trend is the fact that, worldwide, wages have grown less than productivity. Beyond the ethical dimension of this issue, it jeopardizes the social and economic sustainability of growth. For example, one of the root causes of the recent financial crisis was that households in the United States responded to declining wage income by borrowing more to pay for consumption and housing. This turned out to be unsustainable in the long run. Over time, it undermines the labour market’s contribution to the efficient allocation of resources and its distributive function, too, with negative consequences for democratic governance. Among the triggers of this distributive worsening most often cited in the global debate are market deregulation and its impact on financial globalization, technological change that favours capital over labour, and the weakening of labour institutions. What is needed here is a public policy effort to help keep wage increases from lagging behind increases in productivity. Some countries of the region, especially in South America, saw promising developments during the second half of the 2000s in the form of a positive trend reversal in wages as a percentage of GDP. One example is Brazil, where a minimum wage policy tailored to the dynamics of the domestic market is considered to be one of the factors behind an upturn in the wage share of GDP. The region needs to grow more and better. Productivity must grow at a steady pace, to serve as the basis for sustained improvements in the well-being of the populace and to narrow the gap between the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean and the more advanced economies. And inequality must be decreased; this could be achieved by closing the productivity gap between upgraded companies and the many firms whose productivity is low. As set out in this report, the region made some progress between 2002 and 2010, with labour productivity rising at the rate of 1.5% a year. But this progress falls short of that seen in other regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa (2.1%) and, above all, East Asia (8.3%, not counting Japan and the Republic of Korea). Moreover, in many of the countries of the region these gains have not been distributed equitably. Therein lies a dual challenge that must be addressed: continue to increase productivity while enhancing the mechanisms for distributing gains in a way that will encourage investment and boost worker and household income. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimate that the pace of economic growth in the region will be slightly slower in 2012 than in 2011, in a global economic scenario marked by the cooling of several of the main economic engines and a high degree of uncertainty concerning, above all, prospects for the euro zone. The region is expected to continue to hold up well to this worsening scenario, thanks to policies that leveraged more favourable conditions in the past. This will be felt in the labour markets, as well, so expectations are that unemployment will edge down by as much as two tenths of a decimal point.

Preface to Lesser Known Large dsDNA Viruses. Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology 328

Several large dsDNA-containing viruses such as poxviruses (smallpox) and herpes viruses are well known among the scientific community, as well as the general populace, because they cause human diseases. The large dsDNA insect-infecting baculoviruses are also well known in the scientific community because they are used both as biological control agents and as protein expression systems. However, there are other large dsDNA-containing viruses, including the giant 1.2-Mb mimivirus, which are less well known even though all of them play important roles in everyday life. Seven of these virus families are reviewed in this book.

THE MONK PARAKEET IN NEW YORK

Attention was focused on the Monk Parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus) in New York State in 1971 when the first successful breeding record was documented for the state although Monk Parakeets had been noticed in New York and New Jersey since 1968 (Bull, 1971). Since 1971 awareness of the bird’s potential for becoming an established species in New York has spread through several segments of the state’s populace. This awareness has been created primarily through two articles in the magazine published by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), The Conservationist (Trimm, 1972) (Trimm, 1973); several articles in popular magazines, Parade, Yankee, Sports Afield; journals, American Birds and Kingbird; county cooperative extension bulletins and newsletters; and in numerous newspapers throughout the Northeast. The Monk Parakeet is about 12 inches long (Mourning Dove size), weighs about 90 grams, and is native to Argentina and other temperate regions of South America. The bird is pale green with a soft gray forehead and breast, some blue on the flight feathers and a flesh-colored bill. They are gregarious throughout the year. The Monk Parakeet differs from other members of the parrot family in that it builds large communal nests of sticks. Each pair of parakeets has its own private compartment with a downward-pointing tunnel entrance from the inner unlined compartment. The nest is used as sleeping quarters year round and live twigs cut by the bird are continually added to the structure (Bump, 1971). A brief review of the bird’s history in New York shows that the bird remained a mere curiosity until 1972. At that time, because the population seemed to be increasing and because information gleaned from the literature and from those with first-hand experience with the bird in its native haunts of South America indicated that the bird posed a serious potential agricultural problem, several prominent individuals, birding and conservation societies, and state and federal agencies took the position that the bird should be retrieved or removed from the wild.

Drinking, Family Relations and Authority in Early Modern Germany

The ideal of orderly family life in early modern Germany did not exclude drinking. In fact, drinks shared at the family table were closely tied to early modern notions of the marital bond and were also a necessary component of normal work relations. Drinking became a problem only when it threatened the stability of the household. The amount of alcohol involved in such cases might be as little as one drink if the circumstances were unsuitable. On the other hand, drinking that would by our standards be viewed as excessive or chronic could be considered acceptable . Even during and immediately after the period of Reformation, when polemical and prescriptive literature addressing the household was dominated by the problem of sin, drunkenness was rarely treated as a spiritual issues. The primary concern of both authorities and populace was not to protect the health or the rights of individuals but to protect the sanctity of the household and the stability of the community.

STATE-AND-TRANSITION MODELING AND ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT: TOOLS FOR FUTURE CO-DEVELOPMENT OF MADAGASCAR’S NATURAL RESOURCES AND PEOPLE

Madagascar’s terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems have long supported a unique set of ecological communities, many of whom are endemic to the tropical island. Those same ecosystems have been a source of valuable natural resources to some of the poorest people in the world. Nevertheless, with pride, ingenuity and resourcefulness, the Malagasy people of the southwest coast, being of Vezo identity, subsist with low development fishing techniques aimed at an increasingly threatened host of aquatic seascapes. Mangroves, sea grass bed, and coral reefs of the region are under increased pressure from the general populace for both food provisions and support of economic opportunity. Besides purveyors and extractors, the coastal waters are also subject to a number of natural stressors, including cyclones and invasive, predator species of both flora and fauna. In addition, the aquatic ecosystems of the region are undergoing increased nutrient and sediment runoff due, in part, to Madagascar’s heavy reliance on land for agricultural purposes (Scales, 2011). Moreover, its coastal waters, like so many throughout the world, have been proven to be warming at an alarming rate over the past few decades. In recognizing the intimate interconnectedness of the both the social and ecological systems, conservation organizations have invoked a host of complimentary conservation and social development efforts with the dual aim of preserving or restoring the health of both the coastal ecosystems and the people of the region. This paper provides a way of thinking more holistically about the social-ecological system within a resiliency frame of understanding. Secondly, it applies a platform known as state-and-transition modeling to give form to the process. State-and-transition modeling is an iterative investigation into the physical makeup of a system of study as well as the boundaries and influences on that state, and has been used in restorative ecology for more than a decade. Lastly, that model is sited within an adaptive management scheme that provides a structured, cyclical, objective-oriented process for testing stakeholders cognitive understanding of the ecosystem through a pragmatic implementation and monitoring a host of small-scale interventions developed as part of the adaptive management process. Throughout, evidence of the application of the theories and frameworks are offered, with every effort made to retool conservation-minded development practitioners with a comprehensive strategy for addressing the increasingly fragile social-ecological systems of southwest Madagascar. It is offered, in conclusion, that the seascapes of the region would be an excellent case study worthy of future application of state-and-transition modeling and adaptive management as frameworks for conservation-minded development practitioners whose multiple projects, each with its own objective, have been implemented with a single goal in mind: preserve and protect the state of the supporting environment while providing for the basic needs of the local Malagasy people.

Social milieus and worldviews in Mamluk adab-encyclopedias: The example of poverty and wealth

The economic and cultural rise of parts of the ʿāmma due to the particular economic and infrastructural conditions of the Mamluk era fostered the emergence of new intermediate levels of literature that were situated between the literature of the elite and that of the utterly ignorant and unlettered populace, between the Arabic koiné (al-ʿarabīya al-fuṣḥā) and the local dialects (ʿāmmīya-s), between written and oral composition, performance and transmission. The paper proposes to analyze the composition of three Mamluk adab-encyclopedias and their treatment of poverty and wealth in light of the social milieus of their authors and publics.

Representing Afghanistan: The United States and Democracy's Imposition

There is an ongoing mission in Afghanistan; a mission driven by external political forces. At its core this mission hopes to establish peace, to protect the populace, and to install democracy. Each of these goals has remained just that, a goal, for the past eight years as the American and international mission in Afghanistan has enjoyed varied levels of commitment. Currently, the stagnant progress in Afghanistan has led the international community to become increasingly concerned about the viability of a future Afghan state. Most of these questions take root in the question over whether or not an Afghan state can function without the auspices of international terrorism. Inevitably, the normative question of what exactly that government should be arises from this base concern. In formulating a response to this question, the consensus of western society has been to install representative democracy. This answer has been a recurring theme in the post Cold War era as states such as Bosnia and Somalia bear witness to the ill effects of external democratic imposition. I hypothesize that the current mold of externally driven state-building is unlikely to result in what western actors seek it to establish: representative democracy. By primarily examining the current situation in Afghanistan, I claim that external installation of representative democracy is modally flawed in that its process mandates choice. Representative democracy by definition constitutes a government reflective of its people, or electorate. Thus, freedom of choice is necessary for a functional representative democracy. From this, one can deduce that because an essential function of democracy is choice, its implementation lies with the presence of choice. State-building is an imposition that eliminates that necessary ingredient. The two stand as polar opposites that cannot effectively collaborate. Security, governing capacity, and development have all been targeted as measurements of success in Afghanistan. The three factors are generally seen as mutually constitutive; so improved security is seen as improving governing capacity. Thus, the recent resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and a deteriorating security environment moving forward has demonstrated the inability of the Afghan government to govern. The primary reason for the Afghan government’s deficiencies is its lack of legitimacy among its constituency. Even the use of the term ‘constituency’ must be qualified because the Afghan government has often oscillated between serving the people within its territorial borders and the international community. The existence of the Afghan state is so dependent on foreign aid and intervention that it has lost policy-making and enforcing power. This is evident by the inability of Afghanistan to engage in basic sovereign state activities as maintaining a national budget, conducting elections, providing for its own national security, and deterring criminality. The Afghan state is nothing more than a shell of a government, and indicative of the failings that external state-building has with establishing democracy.

Analysis of community health worker utilization in El Paso County, Texas

Community health workers (CHWs) are an accepted, viable component of health systems worldwide. Most often they are utilized in developing regions where health care access is limited and/or health care practitioners are scarce. In this way community health workers have been used to extend the reach of primary care delivery to whole nations, and can be used to reduce health disparities in disadvantaged populations or minority groups as well. In the United States, utilization of CHWs is fragmented, and an amalgam of programs exist which are usually only community-specific. These programs are often burdened by financial un-sustainability. The Community Health Worker National Workforce Study (2007) was markedly the first effort to compile a profile of the CHW workforce in all 50 states. El Paso County, as a uniquely bi-national setting, provided a prime locale to assess CHW utilization on a localized scale, and in a distinctively Latino population and medically underserved area. ^ Results gleaned from this study of 45 CHWs and 5 administrators demonstrate commonalities between El Paso County CHWs and the national CHW workforce; differences were found in average education level, wages for experienced CHWs, as well as primary target populace and target health issues. Future research should focus on cost-effectiveness of CHW utilization.^

La educación, base para el desarrollo y la seguridad a escala humana

Las teorías sobre el desarrollo son en realidad un dinámico debate acerca de la relación población/recursos, de las condiciones de inequidad a escala planetaria y al interior de las naciones, y de las formas de superarlas. Para avanzar hacia el desarrollo humano, es prioritario enfocar las acciones en la superación de las carencias que afectan la situación personal de los ciudadanos y eliminar los obstáculos que impiden su bienestar en relación con las condiciones medioambientales en las que transcurre su vida. La educación es comprendida como el eje fundamental para alcanzar niveles de desarrollo aceptables, asegurando superar situaciones de exclusión social. Sobre la base de encuestas en cuatro establecimientos educativos del Gran Mendoza, se analizan las relaciones existentes entre las representaciones, de los adolescentes y sus familias sobre la importancia de la educación como medio optimizador de las situaciones socioeconómicas y los proyectos de capacitación futura, tanto a nivel terciario como universitario.

Gentrificación liderada por el Estado y empresarialismo urbano en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires

A partir de la experiencia de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, el artículo reflexiona sobre la gentrificación como una estrategia de desarrollo urbano impulsada por diversos gobiernos locales de la región, en un contexto de difusión del empresarialismo urbano. En este marco, el Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires impulsó, desde 1990, un intenso proceso de transformación urbana en el área central y en los barrios del sudeste, generando un tipo particular de interrelación con el sector privado que promueve la gentrificación en barrios del sudeste de la ciudad. Como consecuencia, han emergido recurrentemente conflictos urbanos que se oponen al modelo de desarrollo urbano impulsado desde el GCABA y reivindican el derecho a la ciudad para las mayorías. No obstante, todos estos conflictos mantienen un elevado nivel de fragmentación y no han logrado hasta el momento articularse en un único movimiento social urbano, lo que va en detrimento de las capacidades para modificar la orientación de las políticas urbanas locales.

Forasteros y migrantes. Un acercamiento a la construcción de la trama social en la ciudad de San Miguel de Tucumán en las últimas décadas coloniales

El crecimiento de los sectores populares urbanos hacia fines del siglo XVIII y comienzos del XIX, quizás haya sido uno de los fenómenos demográficos más significativos y que ha producido más rupturas en la organización social corporativa y jerárquica de Antiguo Régimen. Recién cuando la ciudad creció y adquirió características de urbe (que no eran sinónimos), pudo hablarse de la presencia de un grupo social que no pertenecía a la corporación de vecinos y que incluso se oponía a ésta. El tema que se plantea en este trabajo es la construcción de la trama social urbana en San Miguel de Tucumán en las postrimerías coloniales. En este contexto, problematizamos la situación de forasteros y migrantes como un problema para las autoridades en torno a su ubicación social y su control. La hipótesis que planteamos es que la definición de "forastero en la ciudad" aplicada por las autoridades, estaba dirigida a los migrantes "de baja esfera", es decir, a quienes no eran reconocidos por los vecinos como pares. Progresivamente, la referencia de identificación utilizada fue la patria: el lugar de origen. Cada vez era más frecuente la expresión "natural deÔǪ" como única referencia de identidad, más allá de las señas personales.

Forasteros y migrantes. Un acercamiento a la construcción de la trama social en la ciudad de San Miguel de Tucumán en las últimas décadas coloniales

El crecimiento de los sectores populares urbanos hacia fines del siglo XVIII y comienzos del XIX, quizás haya sido uno de los fenómenos demográficos más significativos y que ha producido más rupturas en la organización social corporativa y jerárquica de Antiguo Régimen. Recién cuando la ciudad creció y adquirió características de urbe (que no eran sinónimos), pudo hablarse de la presencia de un grupo social que no pertenecía a la corporación de vecinos y que incluso se oponía a ésta. El tema que se plantea en este trabajo es la construcción de la trama social urbana en San Miguel de Tucumán en las postrimerías coloniales. En este contexto, problematizamos la situación de forasteros y migrantes como un problema para las autoridades en torno a su ubicación social y su control. La hipótesis que planteamos es que la definición de "forastero en la ciudad" aplicada por las autoridades, estaba dirigida a los migrantes "de baja esfera", es decir, a quienes no eran reconocidos por los vecinos como pares. Progresivamente, la referencia de identificación utilizada fue la patria: el lugar de origen. Cada vez era más frecuente la expresión "natural deÔǪ" como única referencia de identidad, más allá de las señas personales.

Forasteros y migrantes. Un acercamiento a la construcción de la trama social en la ciudad de San Miguel de Tucumán en las últimas décadas coloniales

El crecimiento de los sectores populares urbanos hacia fines del siglo XVIII y comienzos del XIX, quizás haya sido uno de los fenómenos demográficos más significativos y que ha producido más rupturas en la organización social corporativa y jerárquica de Antiguo Régimen. Recién cuando la ciudad creció y adquirió características de urbe (que no eran sinónimos), pudo hablarse de la presencia de un grupo social que no pertenecía a la corporación de vecinos y que incluso se oponía a ésta. El tema que se plantea en este trabajo es la construcción de la trama social urbana en San Miguel de Tucumán en las postrimerías coloniales. En este contexto, problematizamos la situación de forasteros y migrantes como un problema para las autoridades en torno a su ubicación social y su control. La hipótesis que planteamos es que la definición de "forastero en la ciudad" aplicada por las autoridades, estaba dirigida a los migrantes "de baja esfera", es decir, a quienes no eran reconocidos por los vecinos como pares. Progresivamente, la referencia de identificación utilizada fue la patria: el lugar de origen. Cada vez era más frecuente la expresión "natural deÔǪ" como única referencia de identidad, más allá de las señas personales.